Players you wished we'd kept

[bobo the clown]

Back in the early '80's when we began our slide I saw Tony Henry be sold to Oldham. Oldham ffs.

Our best & classiest player at the time ... & I knew then that we were in trouble as a club.

[CAPSLOCK]

Newsome, but again, turned out he was kernackered

Ian Bailey

[Bruce Rioja]

Andy Dibble.

[ratters]

Going back a bit:-
Denis Stevens (to Everton), Wyn Davies (Newcastle), Franny Lee (City), Dave Hatton (Blackpool) and later Peter Reid.

[Prufrock]

Wilshere and Sturridge would've been nice .

Michael Johansen.

Selling Cahill when we did defo looks like a gamble gone hugely wrong too.

[BWFC_Insane]

Jonathan Walters

Kevin Nolan

[Bruce Rioja]

Asa Hartford.

[clapton is god]

Asa Hartford.

Now, he was a "whole hearted player"*, as some daft commentator said on TV.

*For those who don't remember those times, he was found to have a hole in his heart.

[Abdoulaye's Twin]

Would love Sturridge back, really showed his potential on loan but like Wilshere he seems a permacrock!

Common theme here. Permacrock became a thing at the Reebok when Coyle was around...surely can't be coincidence...

[Prufrock]

Wilshere and Sturridge would've been nice .

Michael Johansen.

Selling Cahill when we did defo looks like a gamble gone hugely wrong too.

Wasn't he hemming and hawing over a new contract with us when we eventually sold? And I read on here that we agreed a £15m fee with City a few months before that they pulled out. Cracking player, one of the best CBs we've had, but I'm glad we got a decent fee for him when we did rather than risk losing him for nowt.

Would love Sturridge back, really showed his potential on loan but like Wilshere he seems a permacrock!

We went down on goal difference. I'd rather have kept him, lost him for free but still been in the Prem!

[LeverEnd]

Andy Dibble.

He was fantastic in that loan spell. I remember standing behind the goal at Stoke and Mark Stein curled a beauty towards the top corner, the kind you sometimes just have to admire even when it goes in against you. Except it was outdone by an amazing backwards leap and mid-air twist by Dibble, as he scooped it one-handed to safety.
Maybe it's rose-tinted hindsight, or the angle I was at made it look better, but I've never seen a better save up close and live.
The disappointment at being unable to sign him was tempered by the arrival of Keith Branagan a year later, although to my memory the time between the signings seems much longer. The end of one era and beginning of another I suppose.

[CAPSLOCK]

Wilshere and Sturridge would've been nice .

Michael Johansen.

Selling Cahill when we did defo looks like a gamble gone hugely wrong too.

Wasn't he hemming and hawing over a new contract with us when we eventually sold? And I read on here that we agreed a £15m fee with City a few months before that they pulled out. Cracking player, one of the best CBs we've had, but I'm glad we got a decent fee for him when we did rather than risk losing him for nowt.

Would love Sturridge back, really showed his potential on loan but like Wilshere he seems a permacrock!

We spunked it on Sordell n Ream

We may as well given him away

[danardif1]

Recently Cahill was probably the main one... defenders as good as him are hard to come by and we let him far too cheaply without any hope of adequately replacing him.

Also would suggest we could've fought more to keep Anelka another season or so. It felt like he was just getting started with us before Chelsea came a-knocking. We got a good price for him but again he was a player that was nearly impossible to replace... especially when the replacement was Elmander! 10 goals in 18 in that first half of the season before we sold him, probably would've cruised past 20 for the season had he stuck around.

[CAPSLOCK]

Recently Cahill was probably the main one... defenders as good as him are hard to come by and we let him far too cheaply without any hope of adequately replacing him.

It was either what we got or nothing

Also would suggest we could've fought more to keep Anelka another season or so.

Good lord

[BWFC_Insane]

I think Cahill had done his time here. We'd have just been holding his career back not letting him go. The problem as said was that we spent the money so badly I don't think we could have done worse if we'd actively tried to.

[boltonboris]

Wilshere and Sturridge would've been nice .

Michael Johansen.

Selling Cahill when we did defo looks like a gamble gone hugely wrong too.

Wasn't he hemming and hawing over a new contract with us when we eventually sold? And I read on here that we agreed a £15m fee with City a few months before that they pulled out. Cracking player, one of the best CBs we've had, but I'm glad we got a decent fee for him when we did rather than risk losing him for nowt.

Would love Sturridge back, really showed his potential on loan but like Wilshere he seems a permacrock!

We went down on goal difference. I'd rather have kept him, lost him for free but still been in the Prem!

We wouldn't have stayed up in my opinion

[Prufrock]

Really? Sordell and Ream made zero contribution. An England centre-half was worth a point over the rest of that season,! I mean, it's with hindsight of course (and if we'd kept him and he'd gone for free no doubt folk would've said we should have taken the cash and would probably have stayed up anyway).

The error was letting the contracts of good players run down. That and jizzing away the cash we did get.

[boltonboris]

Really? Sordell and Ream made zero contribution. An England centre-half was worth a point over the rest of that season,! I mean, it's with hindsight of course (and if we'd kept him and he'd gone for free no doubt folk would've said we should have taken the cash and would probably have stayed up anyway).

The error was letting the contracts of good players run down. That and jizzing away the cash we did get.

From memory (can't be arsed checking) we kept more clean sheets after he'd gone than we did previously that season

Also, would he have scored the 2 goals that Wheater scored in the win against Blackburn(?) for instance?

[jaffka]

We also should have simply made the players sign contract extensions, as that's clearly how it works.

[Prufrock]

Or sold him for proper money when they weren't going for free the next summer. When the City deal fell through there was still supposedly £12m on the table from Arsenal. Think how many N'Gog's we could've got.

There's clearly never going to be a winner in a hypothetical debate about what would have happened if Cahill had stayed but, accepting I can't prove anything, you're mad if you think we were better without him than with!